Anyone who rents a Warsaw Parks and Recreation facility can now publicize their event on the Central Park’s digital sign for an extra fee.
The Parks Board approved the rental agreement and rates for the sign at its meeting Tuesday.
The sign is at the North Detroit Street entrance to Central Park.
“We thought we’d bring something to the board to have them look over as far as what our intentions are,” Parks Superintendent Larry Plummer told the board. He said Recreation Director Sheila Wieringa has worked on the agreement and rates for awhile.
Wieringa said the rental fee for placing an announcement on the digital sign would be $20 across the board. The number of days the announcement would be up on the sign will depend on what kind of announcement it is.
“What we’re proposing is, if it’s a private event – a wedding, a birthday, a family reunion – it would be a three-day rent time. Two days leading up to the event and the day of the event,” she explained.
“If it’s a public event – the plant sale, Christmas craft show – it would be a seven-day rent time, so six days leading up to the event and the day of the event,” she said.
Renting space on the digital sign would be limited to “rentals of our facilities, whether it be a shelter, whether it be a pavilion, any rental of our facility would allow them to rent the sign,” Wieringa said.
A person could not just come off the street and only rent space on the digital sign, she said.
Final design and wording of an event on the sign would be limited by sign restraints and at the discretion of Warsaw Parks Department staff. Rental form and payment must be received 14 days prior to the message start date.
Wieringa came up with several different background choices so anyone renting the sign could choose from those pre-designed selections. “It wouldn’t be a brand new design for each new rental,” she said.
Plummer said he wanted the board to look at if they need to put a limit on how many sign rentals they have at one time so the rentals don’t overshadow the Park Department’s event announcements. He asked Wieringa what should be the limit for the number of rentals on the digital sign.
Wieringa said she thought a high number would be OK because the way the software for the sign is set up, she can “put all of those on one play list and I can tell it to only run one off that play list per rotation.”
Plummer asked, “So we can have the park events be the dominant on the sign?” Wieringa said that was correct. Plummer said that might need to be in the contract so the renters will know how often it will pop up on the sign. Wieringa said after an event has stopped running, she can also run a report that shows exactly how many times it ran on the sign, days and times.
